Spotify and Kakao Entertainment have finally reached a licensing agreement, which means K-Pop fans around the world will again be able to enjoy the full library of their favorite K-Pop songs on the streaming platform.
As a result of the agreement, works of Kakao Entertainment artists will also now be available on Spotify in South Korea, which was not the case before the licensing agreement expired.
The only piece missing right now, is an actual date as to when the songs will become available once again.
Here are the statements from both companies:
From Spotify
“We are pleased that Kakao Entertainment’s content and artists are back on Spotify, allowing our 345M+ global listeners across 170 countries to once again enjoy the music they love. Spotify’s mission has always been to connect artists to their fans all over the world and to give listeners access to all of the world’s music. We are delighted that our Korean listeners will now also be able to enjoy this local music alongside our 70 million+ songs and 4 billion+ playlists. We remain committed to making a positive impact on Korea’s music streaming ecosystem through our partnerships with artists, labels, and local rights holders.“
From Kakao Entertainment
“Kakao Entertainment Corp.(previously Kakao M) has entered into an agreement with Spotify and will sequentially provide its music content to Spotify for service in and beyond Korea. Through its diverse partnerships around the world including Spotify, Kakao Entertainment hopes that music lovers around the world can easily access its artists’ and music content to enjoy K-pop. Kakao Entertainment remains committed to the Korean music ecosystem and its growth and will continue protecting the rights of artists, labels, and local rights holders going forward.“
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.